Comfort Me
by scribb1es
Summary: Callie needed her Mom's to comfort her after the ordeal with Russell. It brought back too many bad memories. A one-shot based on 5x01. (Trigger warning: mentions of sexual assault)


**Hello!**

 **I wanted to write a fanfic which reflected a bit more of the direction I wished 5x01 had gone. I know Stef needed to be harsh with Callie and say what see did, but couldn't help but want to have had her be a bit more comforting considering what happened. Obviously I understand her having been scared and having the conversation she did with Callie, though. So this is what I came up with. I tend to get very emo when it gets to Callie. It's a problem.**

 **I don't know if anyone is reading/has read either of my other fics, but feel free to check them out.**

 **I intended to add another chapter to the multi-chapter some time next week - it's a Callie/Ximena pairing, and can I just add how much I am FREAKING OUT after 5x12, I started shipping together back in JUNE okay - but I only have this weekend to get a lab report done for one of my classes, so that's a bit more of a focus right now. The joys of a university student.**

 **Anyway, I hope you enjoy this and feel free to leave a review!**

* * *

" _I'll kill you too. And dump your body in a ditch. Ain't anybody ever gonna find you; not that anyone would care."_

Russell's words and the feeling of his hand on her thigh were the only things Callie could think about as sat in the dingily lit bathroom. She stared into nowhere, her arms wrapped about her legs and her head rested on her knees. The water she was submerged in was beginning to go cold, but she didn't seem to notice. All she could think about were the horrors of that night.

She knew she was in trouble when they walked into the motel room and the pimp hit Diamond on the back of the head. She had known before that, in fact, but she was still trying to convince herself it was all a bad dream. That she would wake up in her room with one of her Mom's beside her, stroking her hair and willing the bad thoughts away. But that moment never came.

When her Mom rescued her, she wanted nothing more than to be pulled into her arms; squeezed like her life depended on it, because in that moment it _did_ , she needed someone to tell her it was okay. Yet all her Mom gave her was a forceful tug and some harsh words.

Sure, she understood why. She had _scared_ her – more than she ever had before. When she ran away after the wedding, she had scared her Mom too, but it was different then. She wasn't a permanent fixture to the family. She wasn't family. Back then all she was a confused girl that was staying with them – a confused girl that they deserved better than.

It wasn't like she didn't need to hear her mother's word that night, either, she just wished they had been a second thought once she had been engulfed in the safety of the woman's arms.

" _One of these days you're not going to be so lucky, and I'm not going to able to just take you home because they're going to be taking your body to the morgue."_

The teenager shuddered at the thought. She didn't _want_ to die – not as far as she was aware – but if putting herself at risk meant that somebody was safe, then it seemed like a fair trade. Callie couldn't shake off the feeling of having to protect everyone. It had become her life. When all Jude had in the system was his big sister, she had to step up. She had to keep him out of harm's way. Just like she did with everyone else.

* * *

"So, she just... got in the van?" Lena asked, her eyebrows furrowed in a frown, "Why– why would she do that?"

"I don't know, Lena. I just don't know," Stef sighed, "maybe she has a death wish or something."

Lena hesitated before questioning, "you don't think she wants to die... do you?"

"I didn't think so, but why else would she do it? It doesn't make sense," the blonde woman said after a few quiet moments. She was slowly pacing the room, still trying to calm herself down from the night's events.

When Daphne told her Callie was with Russell, her heart had fallen to her stomach. She felt sick. Her daughter was with a known violent trafficker, and she had no idea where they were. The only clue they had to the gir'ls whereabouts was the tracker on her phone. The universe was playing a cruel, hard trick in her. Nothing had felt real in her entire pursuit to find her daughter – she just felt like she was in a trance.

It reminded her of all the other times Callie had scared her: when she ran away, when Gray had her sent to Chula Vista, and when she found out the teen had been in a car with a complete stranger. But this stunt had been above and beyond.

"She's okay, Stef, she's okay," she heard, her wife's comforting words bringing her back to reality.

Lena had gotten up from the bed when her wife had stopped her pacing. She saw the woman tormenting herself in her mind. Her hands had begun to shake, and her breaths had become shallow. Her heart broke for her beautiful wife, and she got up from her place on the bed to wrap her arms around her.

The embrace was to ground her, to save her from her thoughts.

"She– she could've been _killed,_ Lena, he had a gun," Stef sobbed, "we almost lost our baby."

The older woman closed her eyes at the thought, willing the tears to not fall.

"We almost lost her, Lena, and I don't know what I would've done," she heard her wife cry again.

"But we didn't, love," she reminded her, pulling arm from the woman and holding her by the shoulders, forcing her to look into her eyes, "we didn't. We didn't lose her. She's okay. She's safe. She's home."

She wiped away a tear as it fell down her wife's cheek, pulling her back into a tight clutch.

* * *

The couple knew sleep was coming to them no time soon, and decided to take their conversation downstairs in fear they would wake up one of their kids.

They hadn't told any one of them what had happened that night, Stef had just ushered Callie upstairs when they walked in the door. At that time Lena had no idea of the events either, thinking it was strange that her wife and daughter hadn't come home until past half ten. However, she knew something had happened when her wife watched their daughter go upstairs whilst wiping her hand down her face with a heavy sigh and closed eyes. She had tried to ask them what had happened, but the blonde had just waved her off. _That's_ when she knew it was serious.

"You go downstairs, love, I'll just go check on Callie," Lena whispered as they walked across the landing. The woman hadn't seen her daughter besides that moment and although she knew she was safely tucked up in her bed, she just had to see her for herself.

She pushed the door of her daughter's room open slowly, as to not make too much noise and wake up either of her two girls. Not that she had to worry with Mariana – she was a very heavy sleeper like her twin brother – but Callie was roused much more easily. Her mothers guessed it was a trait she had adopted as a foster child. Jude was the same.

When she tiptoed into the room, she saw her eldest daughter laid awake, briefly worrying if she had woken her. However, when she looked closer at the girl, she could see that she had already been awake by the darkness under her eyes.

Callie hadn't reacted to the door opening. Rather, she was staring blankly ahead of her, seemingly disconnected with the world around her.

"Callie," the woman whispered, looking behind her to check her other daughter was still asleep, before repeating herself a little louder, "Callie."

The girl in question jumped a little when her mother's voice filtered through her haze. Ever since Stef had rescued her she had felt numb, but also very on edge. She couldn't get the images out of her mind, or the thoughts to stop barrelling in her head. The feeling of his hands.

"Yeah?" She whispered, looking at her Mama quickly before darting her eyes away again. She couldn't look at her with all the shame she felt in the pit of her stomach. The shame she knew her Mom's felt towards her.

"Are you okay?" Lena spoke softly. The principal was stood beside the bed now, and gently tucked a strand of her daughters damp her behind her ear. She didn't miss the shudder the girl tried to hide. Her response was a small nod, "tell me the truth, Callie."

Lena watched as her daughter fought an internal battle about how to respond next. Tears welled up in the young girl's eyes before a lone droplet fell down her cheek.

"Oh honey," the mother sighed, pulling her daughter into a hug, "come. Sit downstairs with me and Mom. Let's talk about it. I love you so much, baby – _we_ love you so much."

The pair held each other for a few moments before separating. Callie shuffled out of her bed and followed behind Lena as she descended the stairs. When they entered the kitchen, they found Stef at the table with her hands wrapped around a mug, two more sat beside her.

"I figured you'd be joining us," she explained as her daughter looked from the drinks to her, "they're decaf, otherwise we _definitely_ won't be sleeping _."_

The two women had the girl sit between them, turning towards her as she mimicked her Mom, clasping her hands around the body of the mug and staring at the wooden table in front of her. They looked at each other from either side of the girl, the curly haired woman ushering her wife to start the conversation.

"You scared me tonight, bug, you know that right? You scared the life out of me," Stef spoke shakily, "I thought I was never going to find you when we recovered your phone and you weren't with it. Or scared that when we did you would be hurt, or dead." She paused. "He _didn't_ hurt you, did he?"

Both women waited anxiously for an answer. After a few moments, they saw their daughter shake her head. He hadn't hurt her.

"Can you say it, please, love? I need to hear you say it out loud," the blonde requested, needing the extra clarification.

"He didn't hurt me," the teenager whispered, "not really."

"What do you mean by 'not really'?" Lena questioned next, frowning slightly at her daughter's choice of words.

"He never hurt me," Callie began to explain, pulling her hands onto her lap and twiddling her thumbs, "but he... he touched me."

"What do you mean, love, what did he do?" The cop asked concerned. She could tell her eldest daughter was feeling increasingly uncomfortable just thinking about what had happened. She was pretty sure she knew where the story was going.

"He– he made Diamond leave the room so he could be alone with me. Then he made me have some of this drink, I don't know what it was, but it tasted a bit weird. Kind of like cough syrup," she began shakily.

"It was lean," Stef clarified, "the guys warned me that he may have given you some, since they found the ingredients on the table, but figured you wouldn't have had much so it would've been nothing to worry about."

"What's lean?" The curly haired woman asked.

"It's a mixture of soda, cough syrup and hard-boiled candy," her wife explained, "it's supposed to have sedative effects. Reduce anxiety. It's basically a drug, but is only harmful in large amounts."

Callie tasted the bitter flavour of the drink just thinking back to it. She lifted her coffee filled mug to her lips, taking a few sips to overshadow the bitterness before continuing her retelling of the night's events.

"Then he made me sing to him. I remember he sat beside me. He kept calling me baby," Callie shuddered, "and he made the other girl put makeup on me. I pretended she got some in my eye, so Diamond could sneak into the other room with her phone. To contact you."

She looked over at her mother. The blonde was proud of her daughter for improvising a plan on the spot. If she hadn't, she wasn't sure how long it would've taken them to find the girls. Getting the picture from Diamond with the motel's address was what had led her to them, and possibly saved their lives.

But she also knew the plan had been dangerous. Diamond had had a gun, and Stef knew it wasn't hers. Russell had been shot. She was just glad neither girl was hurt by the weapon, especially since things had appeared to have gotten hostile. If their escape plan had backfired, it could've been either of them on the receiving end, or possibly both. And they might not have been as lucky as Russell to have a received a non-fatal wound.

"After she was done, he made everyone leave us alone again. Every time he did it, it made me so nervous," the brunette continued the story, closing her eyes as the feeling of the vulnerability she felt in the moment came flooding back, "He– he put his gun on the table and then told me to take my jacket off. I didn't want to, but he kept insisting and came over to me. I took it off when he reached out. I wasn't going to let him do it for me."

Lena didn't like the direction this account seemed to be taking. She hated hearing how this man had been with her daughter. After events in her past, she knew it must've made Callie feel particularly nervous.

Her wife and her let their daughter collect herself for a few minutes when she noticed she was getting a bit shaky. They wanted to know what happened for their own peace of mind, but didn't want to push her. They knew it would help her to talk about it, too, and once they had begun, there was no cutting it short. With Callie, she would just build her walls high. They would struggle to get her to talk about it again. Even though they knew she must be struggling, both women also knew it was best for her to get it all over with at once.

"He kept saying things to me. Said he was going to be good to me. Make me a star," their daughter started again after a few minutes of reassuring words, "and he touched my leg, and I couldn't take it anymore. I grab his wrist and told him my real name. That Mum was a cop and was coming after him, so he better get himself out of there if he didn't want to spend the rest of his life in prison. It was stupid, I know. But– but I just couldn't let him touch me like that. Not again. I couldn't let someone take advantage of me again. I'm sorry... I'm sorry."

"Hey, hey, hey. Shhhhhh, Cal. It's okay. You didn't do anything wrong. You were scared. Mama and I understand," Stef comforted, pulling her daughter into her arms as she began to cry. Lena embraced her from the other side too. It hurt both the mothers to see their daughter so distressed. They knew that moment had been triggering for her; forcing her to think about the demons in her past. What had happened with Liam still haunted her at times, and they knew the feeling of the older man had brought back the painful memories they wished she never had to think about.

"It felt like it was happening all over again, Momma. I couldn't. I– I just couldn't do it," the girl cried in their arms. Stef snapped her eyes shut as she tried not to let the tears flow at her child's cries, finding it incredibly hard. She knew her wife had to be struggling too.

The married couple just held the girl for a while, quietly hushing her and trying to comfort her as much as they could. It took almost fifteen minutes for her to stop crying, wiping away her tears when the mothers separated to give her some space. Callie took a deep trembling breath before continuing.

"He obviously got really mad when I told him that. He called Diamond in and then things just went crazy. I said my Mom was on her way and my phone was in the van," she said "he told Diamond he was going to kill her if they found it and I told him to leave her alone, so he told me to shut up. Then he told me that he would kill me too. That he would dump my body in a ditch and that no one would find me. That no one would care."

"What he said wasn't true, baby. You know we love you. We would be devastated if we lost you. You know that, right? You know that we love you?" Lena interrupted, grabbing her daughter's hand.

"I thought that maybe you would be done with me, that I had taken it too far this time. Maybe you would finally give up trying to help me," Callie shrugged.

"Cal, we would never give up on you. We never will. Yes, you scared the hell out of me, but that's only because I love you so much, love. I couldn't bear the thought of him hurting you. Or worse," Stef tried to reassure the girl. She smiled when the teenager nodded, knowing that meant she had taken in what they had both said, "What happened next?"

"Diamond grabbed the gun and pointed it at him. She told him to get away from me. I tried to talk her down, then someone started knocking on the door. I think the other girl said his name was Munchie," the girl recalled, "I pushed Diamond into the other room while he was distracted and locked the door. She almost went out the front door, but I stopped her. The guy was out there, so I told her to go to the bathroom, and I locked that door too. They started arguing really loudly. I didn't know what to do. I was trying to think of a way out. When we walked back out, a gun went off, and I knew we needed to get out. So we just ran out the front, and that was when the police showed up."

Stef and Lena listened to the intense story their daughter told them. Although it scared them to hear how dangerous the situation had become, and how close it had come to one of them being hurt, they felt some pride that their daughter had managed to keep relatively calm during the whole ordeal. She had looked after Diamond the whole time and kept her out of danger, as well as herself.

"Oh, baby. I'm proud of you. You did great," Stef smiled, "but _please_ don't do anything as reckless as this again. You were almost killed. He had a _gun_. It could've gone a lot worse than it did."

"I know, Mom. I'm sorry. I didn't know he had a gun when I first went. I just felt this urge to protect her. I didn't think it would go that badly. I didn't think," Callie apologised, looking from one woman to the other so they knew she was speaking to them both, "all I could think about was how I was going to be going to prison soon anyway. I just couldn't get this uncontrollable urge to protect her. It was like Jude all over again. I'm sorry."

"It's okay, baby. We forgive you. Like Mom said, just don't do it again. We love you too much to lose you," Lena added, "you don't need to protect everyone. It's not your job. I know it's just an instinct you adopted in the system, but you don't need to fight for anyone anymore. You have us to look after you."

"I know," Callie smiled, "I love you too."

After a few moments of silence, Stef spoke up.

"How about we go and watch a movie now to try and lighten the mood?" She suggested, "just the three of us whilst the others sleep."

Lena and Callie laughed at the proposal, but nodded their approval anyway. Within ten minutes the three of them had relocated to the living room, huddled together on the sofa in front of the TV with blankets and cushions as the opening scene for _The Incredibles_ began. It didn't take long for the youngest of the three to fall asleep laid between the two women.

Stef looked at the girl as she rested peacefully, glad that she was safely at home with them. Seeing her relaxed beside her brought so much relief. The feeling of someone grasping her hands interrupter her from her thoughts.

"She's safe. She's okay. We've got her," Lena reminded her, causing her to smile at her wife.

It was true. Their daughter was back in their arms, safe and alive, and without harm. And that was all she needed.


End file.
